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Answ. 3. What is the Spirit of Life?Thirdly, The Spirit of Life is Mercury; the Mover saith this Author isMercury, with which the Stone is to be multiplied when it is made: And itmust be true Mineral Mercury, without any foreign mixture, as Arnoldresolves expressly in his Answer to Boniface: And so Ripley saith, somecan multiply Mercury with Saturn, and other substances, which we desire;Distill it therefore till it be clean, &c. It moreover must have all theproportions of Mercury its ponderosity, otherwise it could not be Metalline;its Humidity, otherwise the Feminine Sperm would be deficient, and itsiccity, not to wet the hand; which it can no sooner lose by Corrosives orotherwise; but it straightway loseth its first Mineral Proportion, and so is nolonger an Ingredient of our true Tincture.Position VI.As the West Latitude is the entrance, so in the North is the first alteration.Proceed then forth to the North by obscuration, &c. Loosing them, andaltering them, &c. The Materials being found, and mixt according to theProportions taught before, is called the West Latitude; because in it the Sunsets, and afterwards appears no more in his Red Robes, till he first becloathed with a White glittering Robe, and be Crowned with a very brightOriental Diadem. Now the progress into the North, is a discovery of theProfundity of the Stone, and is compared to the Winter, which is in theNorth, (chiefly) long, tedious, cold and slobbery; so will it be in this Work;the Signs are Capricorn, Pisces, and Aquarius; In this there is aretrogradation of Sol into its first matter, in which alteration the old Formdies, the Matter rots and putrifies; and is after renewed in the East.This Operation (saith Flammel) is not perfected in less then Five Months;and the Colours of the Compound are dark, obscure, waterish, and a lengthblack like Pitch; in which blackness the Body is rotted into Atoms; whichintire blackness, and height of corruption last but 2 or 3 days; andtherefore saith Ripley in his Epistle, the third day he shall arise; the samesaith Dastin in his Rosary, where he allows four days for Putrefaction: Thesame saith Efferarius the Monk in his intire Treatise published with Dastin;However, the whole time of blackness, in coming, continuing, and goingaway, is 150 days, although the Sun begins to appear in 130 days, if youwork aright. This I have added for the sake of many who expect black ofthe blackest in 40 or 50 days, mistaking Flammel herein; who saith, thecolour must be black of the blackest, and like to the colour of the Dragonsin 40 days, which Dragons were blackish, blewish, and yellowish, whichcolours shew that the Matter begins to rot into Atoms; which rottenness isnot perfected in less than 150 days. (so as to let the Sun appear in its Rays;)191